Why I Almost Cried Over This Vintage China Hutch!

Okay, so I’ll let you know right away…this china hutch no longer exists. It kinda makes me sad just looking at the pictures of it. I sure loved this piece…I almost kept it for my own house. But I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
Here’s how this beauty started out. I absolutely love the detail on the bottom. It has such personality, don’t you think? (PS – can you see my daughter’s messy hair reflection in the glass?!)
This hutch was the first piece I worked on for the flea market. It had been sitting in our basement for a while (like all the others!) and was ready for a makeover. I knew right away that I wanted to use dark colors on it. I wanted it to be almost rustic…or be able to fit in to a more rustic home/design. I used Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint and started with Trophy which is an amazing darker gray. The inside got painted a lighter color, but I can’t remember what it is now. I probably should have written down all the colors I used for my flea market pieces, but I figured I could remember them! Ha!
After Trophy, I went with a custom mix. I mixed the left over Trophy with Typewriter and a little Shutter Gray. It ended up being quite close to Artissimo – but a tiny bit less blue. Below you can see what it looked like before and after sealing it with hemp oil. I love the way hemp oil deepens colors. It makes them look so rich!
And here she is all finished! That color! I just love it!
And you know I love those details!
It was fun setting up these photos. Once I had the hutch styled, I really wanted to keep it! It really fit well in our house right in this spot and I just loved the style of it. But since I needed pieces for the flea market and I can’t possibly keep every piece I make over, I had to say goodbye to her. I’m so glad I took these photos, though, because unfortunately, this piece no longer looks like this. It makes me a little sad just thinking about it. On our way to the other side of the state to take a load of furniture over for the flea market, we made a not-so-smart decision to put this one on the trailer standing up. We apparently didn’t tie it down well enough and not 5 minutes into our travels, we hit a bump and the top of the hutch just cracked right off and flew off the trailer. It landed in the road behind us and, thankfully, the vehicle behind us was able to stop in time not to hit it. We quickly pulled over, ran back to the broken piece and hauled it off the road. I had been so stressed that week, I’m surprised I didn’t break down and cry right then and there! But I helped my hubby pull it off to the side of the road and then load it back on to our trailer, broken glass and all. I’m not gonna lie, I really wanted to just leave it in the median and keep driving. I was so upset after all the work I’d put into it. Plus the fact that if I would have kept it, it would still be sitting safely in our home! Anyway, we got it strapped down on the trailer and back to our house. We just unloaded the top and the bottom pieces and went back on our way. There was no use worrying about what to do with it then. We had a trip to make and I just wanted to get it over with.
We talked about what we did wrong and what we would do better next time on our trip to the west side of the state. And I mentioned that it could have been so much worse! The vehicle behind us could have hit the furniture, it could have damaged their vehicle, and then our insurance would have gone up. We could have caused an actual accident and hurt someone. How awful would that be? So, really, if I think about it, it’s just a piece of furniture. No one died. Everyone is okay. It’s just furniture. And you know what? We were still able to salvage it! It doesn’t look like this anymore, but it still turned out okay! Click here to see how we repurposed this broken piece into something that is still useful…and beautiful!

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Comments

🙁 The piece was beautiful Allison. Totally stinks that it is no more. We’ve had several pieces end up ruined after weather related incidents when they were on consignment in an unconditioned barn. Totally stinks to have to redo and see all your hard work ruined. I’m sure you’ll come up with the perfect plan to salvage the piece!

Oh what a terrible thing to happen but i am glad no one was hurt. I hope it didn’t mess up your whole day and you had a good time at the sale. Now i really can’t wait to see what you did,it is a lovely piece of furniture.

I’m glad you were able to keep the beautiful bottom half of the piece, but that doesn’t make up for what happened. I think I would have taken the pieces home and pouted for the rest of the weekend 🙂 You did an incredible job with it and I can totally understand why you had wanted to keep it. Love your husband’s inventive light, too!